


Safe With You

by epaynter



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Guilt, M/M, Post Episode: s07e12 Ransom, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:40:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23885392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epaynter/pseuds/epaynter
Summary: It is a warm late spring afternoon with a slightly chilled breeze. It’s Sunday and, ironically enough, it is a day that Kevin always looked forward to. A day reserved for rose shearing, crosswords, and Raymond Holt.
Relationships: Kevin Cozner/Ray Holt
Comments: 20
Kudos: 107





	Safe With You

It is a warm late spring afternoon with a slightly chilled breeze. It’s Sunday and, ironically enough, it is a day that Kevin always looked forward to. A day reserved for rose shearing, crosswords, and Raymond Holt.

He opens the screen door to their backyard and the wind drifts past him, around his bare ankles (rolling up beige slacks just slightly past the ankle is apparently _in_ these days- a few of his students had taken a keen interest on educating him about the subject after a lecture on the symbolism of attire in Greek Mythology) and through his thin dress shirt rolled up neatly below the elbows. He had nearly bought a braided rope belt at their suggestion, luckily he revisited the thought hours later and found it stylistically absurd, but could appreciate the versatility of this particular trend.

Raymond is sitting in his designated iron woven chair beside their matching table with a glass surface wrapped in the metal. The steam from the hot black cups of coffee floats in the direction of the breeze.

"Where did you find it?" Raymond asks without looking up from the crossword held in his left hand.

"If I said it was barely close to the gardening supplies, would it mean we both were wrong?" He offers, inspecting at length the well-worn turquoise cap between his fingers. There is no feasible way to keep the prime form of his rose shearing hat any longer, after much use and many washes, it had a soft flimsy material to it now.

"Aha, so it was in the storage room- like I suggested initially," Raymond looks at him now, eyes alight with a mundane victory that is accompanied by a particularly handsome grin.

"Fine, you were closer," Kevin says, "It was in the storage room. On the outside door hook."

"Music to my ears, dear."

He would have immediately delved into the semantics of what constituted as ‘being in the storage room’ if it weren’t for the fact that the grin on his husband’s face had widened and is currently toying with his heart rate rather spectacularly. He can always bring the potential technicality up at a later time, after all.

Kevin watches Cheddar in the yard, following a butterfly with a prance in his tiny paws, instead. He takes a seat on the edge of their dark wooden deck, putting his bare feet in the grass and his toes between the well-manicured blades.

There is the muted clang of a cup touching a coaster behind him and the shuffle of a chair being pushed back across the wooden boards. Raymond sits down beside him.

"Are you still worried?"

The question surprises him, in all of its deep-toned curiosity, and Kevin turns to glance at his husband beside him to search his expression.

"Not at all," Kevin answers gently, "I’m grateful."

There is guilt there and Kevin, over the years, has not had any luck sharing that burden. _Simply because you work in that world does not make every subsequent result of it your fault._

Cheddar trots over at the sight of them sitting side by side, butterfly forgotten and safely hidden somewhere in the rose bushes. Kevin puts both hands their fluffy boy, gently ruffling the fur on his cheeks.

"You’ve always protected us, Raymond. When you say we’re safe now, I trust your word."

"It wouldn’t have happened at all if it wasn’t for my career."

"You don’t know that," Kevin retorts sternly, "I will research kidnapping statistics later tonight if you refuse to believe me. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened exactly as it did but it could have still happened all the same and you would _still_ not be the cause. You can’t take responsibility for the actions of others simply because you make the world a better place and people want to reverse that."

Kevin can hear a sharp exhale beside him and Cheddar takes off again in the direction of the bushes with a newfound interest. He shifts himself to look at Raymond without craning his neck who now has his rose-shearing hat in between his fingers.

"I want to keep you safe, Kevin," Raymond says. It is said with a deliberately structured tone, one Kevin knows quite well, "This isn’t just about Cheddar. He could have easily taken you both. I never realized last time I had been lucky- I was given a warning. This time, I was completely in the dark."

They circled around the events caused by Seamus Murphy far less these days, however, it never truly dissipated out of their lives. _Not for Raymond._

"I am safe," Kevin is looking at him with intensity, "You make me feel safe. We can’t predict the future but I am the furthest thing from worried- about Cheddar, about myself, about you. What can I do to make you feel the same way?"

It feels like an absurd question but there is an ache in each breath he takes, watching his husband burn himself over and over on a guilt-ridden fire that Raymond refuses to let him near.

Raymond places the cap on Kevin’s head then, holding the visor edge, and tugs it gently towards him. Kevin is being kissed just moments later.

Being kissed by Raymond Holt is a complex and distracting action. It ran interference from the matter at hand pressing against his brain instead creating a demanding desire to have more of his husband in every sense of the matter.

"You’ve given me more than I could have ever asked for. You can’t erase what I see on a daily basis but you always keep me grounded," Raymond says, softer this time, "Although, I’m quite looking forward to watching my husband in the fits of his gardening labor if that is something I can request presently."

Incorrigibly infatuating.

Kevin raises an eyebrow with a slight smile, "That is what will make you feel safer?"

"Without a doubt in my mind."

Kevin laughs at his feigned fervency. He leans over and grabs his shears laying just barely out of reach.

"In that case, you better be prepared to shout the crossword hints from the deck because I’m not letting you gain more points simply due to the fact that I’m flaunting my gardening prowess at your request."


End file.
